Al fresco eating
Sitting down and out in London
Nigella Lawson
It was only to be expected, I suppose, that the minute I sat down to write about eating in the open air, the sky would become overcast. What's more, if the Met Office is to be believed, there are wet days ahead. Working on the principle that the Men from the Met are about as believable as a convocation of second-hand Lada salesmen, I shall carry on regardless. I have to say also that I am not a particular fan of out-of-doors eating. For one thing, the weather's rarely quite right: either it is so hot that you run the risk of getting sunstroke while you watch the mayonnaise going rancid and the salad limp; or a wind gets up just as you sit down and turns the meal into a two-submissions- or-a-knockout fight with the napery.
Toto's (589 2062) is a smart Italian restaur- ant of the old school. Waiters are trussed up in tight-fitting black three-piece suits, and old school. Waiters are trussed up in tight-fitting black three-piece suits, and salads are innocent of balsamic vinegar. If you want an outside table, it is wise to ask for a table in the shade when you book, because the white walls of this sheltered courtyard make it a sweltering suntrap. Still, it beats sitting on a rickety chair on some grimy pavement. They go for the full Mediterranean effect here: pots of gera- niums, creeping verdure and elegantly time-stained statuary. Flagging down a waiter requires tenacity and distinctly Ita- lianate gesticulation. But having got your man, what better way to start than with a Campari soda?
Sip slowly, sit back, and enjoy it, for service is not a hurried affair. That is, it looks immensely hurried, but somehow manages to take ages. The menu is basic Italian, somewhat above normal trat, but nothing fancy. I advise being boring and going for the parma ham, either with melon or figs, to start with, or else perhaps a crab salad or seafood salad. Toto's only claim to culinary innovation comes in the pasta course: tagliatelle Toto come in a seriously curried sauce with a few prawns thrown in. There is something of student days in this, when you would be reduced to pasta yet again, bunging in anything you happened to have lying around.
Main courses include the usual number of veal every which way, or there are grilled baby chicken and slabs of fish. Carpaccio features as a main course, and if you like your raw meat in mounds, there's steak tartare. If you must, end with a gelato. Throughout, keep a bottle of dry rosé close to hand. Prices are what you'd expect from the Knightsbridge end of Walton Street. We paid £50 for two for two courses each.
When I visited the Opera Terrace (379 0666) it was the wind factor I had to contend with. In fact some poor person strolling about down below got brained by a falling wine glass. Bang in the centre of Covent Garden piazza, the Terrace is the perfect place to go for lunch, though may I make one thing clear: I am talking geogra- phy here. Great view, shame about the food. There is a pretentious chi-chi sort of a menu, and the service is at the offensive end of desultory.
But stick to cold stuff and you won't go too far wrong. The asparagus (`with a medley of garden salad flavoured by a lemon dill dressing') is a wise choice, as is the lobster and prawn salad — sorry, `rendezvous of lobster and king prawn' for a main course. In fact, I would go so far as to say that was even good. Not so the stilton and pear en croiite covered in a cheese sauce. But then anyone who orders
SUMMER WINE AND FOOD
this deserves all they've got coming to them. But I felt unjustly punished by the steamed brill, which comes foully over- cooked and straining under purée of this, sauce of that and 'spaghetti' of something or other. I didn't get as far as pudding. But the house white is good, fresh and sharp, and the setting really is sympathetic. Try to keep your dealings with the waiting staff to a minimum, heed my earlier advice about avoiding anything hot, and you can spend a very agreeable lunchtime here. Though at £62 for two, so you should.
Evenings are a problem with al fresco eating. Most nights are not balmy enough to encourage one to brave the elements, and this is where the conservatory comes into its own. Odette's (586 8766) in the bosky north-west has a beautiful white- walled, glass-ceilinged little room at the back, and the ceiling can be opened up if conditions permit. Walk through the front of this restaurant in the Primrose Hill end of Regent's Park Road into the little conser- vatory, decked with a profusion of paint- ings, posters, watercolours and photo- graphs. Food is adventurous, eclectic and requires serious attention. The chilled cream soup of fresh herbs was superb. Following up swiftly at the rear was the dish of langoustines, squid, salmon, cod and red mullet, poached with Noilly Prat and swimming in a rich, creamy champag- nified sauce, dotted with caviar and little twigs of black seaweed.
Main courses are elaborate. Calves' liver with diced apple and spring onions (tied into true love knots) in its own jus spiked with rosemary, and sliced fillet of velvety pink lamb, topped with onion mousse with a tartlet of shallots glazed with grenadine are among the nine-strong list, which includes one vegetarian dish. This is the second time I have been presented with the grenadine-with-onions affair recently, and I must say I am not a fan. But that notwithstanding, everything was all it promised. End with an alcohol-soused hot cherry gratin& or enquire about the spe- cial pudding of the day — when we went, a filo-pastry-wrapped bundle of mixed fruits. With a bottle of rather slender claret from the middle reaches of their list (£17) the bill for dinner for two, three courses each, came to just over £70.
For Sunday lunch, the place to go to is Neal's Lodge in Wandsworth Common (870 7484). This was a perfect day the weather just right, on the green bowls were being played, cricket to the left of us, and tennis beyond the bowls. Service is ami- able, and if the food wasn't out of this world, it didn't seem to matter. On normal days, a frou-frou menu is on offer, but on Sundays there is a £12 prix-fixe, with a couple of starters, a choice of roast lamb, beef or pork, cold poached salmon, and strawberries and cream or a couple of puddings to end with. They were out of Sau- mur (£12.50) on the day I went, but of- fered instead, at the same price, a perfectly decent bottle of non-vintage Champagne. Ignore the braying locals from nearby fes- toon-blind land and have yourself a perfect dimanche dejeuner sur l'herbe.
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